1 Key Insights

The most common topics that would be relevant for college student mental health are Problems with Friends (14.2%) and Academic Pressure (12.3%).
- Other topics that would be relevant only have a handful of sessions: Appearance Anxiety, Conflict with Parents, Procrastination, School Bullying
Users with very intense emotions benefit the most from the sessions, with 1/3 of users with an emotion intensity score of 5 moving down to 1 and 1/2 of users with 4 moving down to 2 after the counseling session.
The most common strategies for when the user is disgusted, fearful, or sad is to affirm them and ask them questions. When users seemed surprised, counselors tend to provide information.

2 General

Number of turns per conversation ranges between 6-38 turns, with the median being at 11 turns.
The most frequent number of turns is 10 turns, making up almost 1/4 of conversations

The most common problems brought up during the counseling sessions, accounting for 2/3 of the sessions, are Ongoing Depression, Job Crisis, and Breakup with Partner.
- The topics that would be most relevant for the mental health agent for college students (Problems with Friends, Academic Pressure, Appearance Anxiety, Conflict with Parents, Procrastination, School Bullying) make up around 30% of the sessions.
The top 3 initial emotions going into the sessions are Depression, Anxiety, and Sadness

All users who rated the counselor as highly empathetic and whose responses are relevant experienced a lower final emotion intensity than their initial emotion intensity.
Users who have very high initial emotion intensity benefit the most from the counseling sessions
- ~1/3 of users who had an initial emotion intensity score of 5 move down to 1 after counseling session
- ~1/2 of users who had an initial emotion intensity score of 4 move down to 2 after counseling session
Users with lower initial emotion intensity still observe a lowered emotion intensity after counseling sessions, though the change is more mild

When considering all strategies used in a session, the most common strategies used are Question, Other Strategy, Providing Suggestions, and then Affirmation and Reassurance.
However, when considering the first strategy that the counselor uses to respond, the most common strategy is Other Strategy compared as opposed to a Question, and Affirmation and Reassurance takes a slight priority over Providing Suggestions.

Most counselors only use 1 strategy after each user turn.
Counselors employ 2 strategies in their response 1/6 out of all turns. < 2% of turns have 3 or more strategies used.

Of the turns in which the counselor uses multiple strategies, the most common strategy pairing is having 2 consecutive other strategies.
The next most common combination is to give the user affirmation before asking a question.

strategy	Count	Percent
Others, Others	95	5.4
Affirmation and Reassurance, Question	76	4.3
Self-disclosure, Question	75	4.3
Providing Suggestions, Providing Suggestions	67	3.8
Others, Question	66	3.8
Affirmation and Reassurance, Providing Suggestions	62	3.5
Affirmation and Reassurance, Others	55	3.1
Affirmation and Reassurance, Affirmation and Reassurance	54	3.1
Reflection of feelings, Question	52	3.0
Self-disclosure, Providing Suggestions	45	2.6

Following the trajectory of a conversation, the most common strategy at the beginning of the conversation is to ask questions and paraphrasing what the user has said.
Next the counselor switch between giving the user reassurance and providing suggestions.
Near the end of the conversation, the counselor will give information and employ other strategies.

Counselors will employ a multitude of strategies when the user seems angry or neutral, indicating there is ambiguity and not one correct strategy.
The most common strategies for when the user is disgusted, fearful, or sad is to affirm and ask them question.
When the user seems surprised, the counselor generally provides suggestions.